Friday, July 20, 2012

Saving Sams

Readers of FITBB know my love for West Tennessee BBQ and the people that work so hard to keep this dying art alive. Our dear friends at Sam's BBQ in Humboldt Tennessee lost their business to fire and we want to help them rebuild. Please read the following from our friends at the Southern Foodways Alliance.

Founder Sam Donald began smoking hogs in the 1940s. Through the years, Sam
worked for other men, smoking their hogs and stirring their sauce. In 1988, Sam
and his wife Mary Donald, opened their own place, Sam's Bar-B-Q, specializing
in shoulder meat sandwiches and sweet potato pies.

Sam built a pit alongside his building, a dome-topped double-decker behemoth.
Oak and hickory limbs burned down to coals on the bottom. Up top, those coals
smoldered, cooking and perfuming pork shoulders.

One more thing: We know that barbecue restaurants burn fairly often. It's a
hazard of an industry that relies on fire for smoke. We realize that we can't
come to the aid of every barbecue restaurant that burns. But we can help this
time. And we hope, that by lending a hand, we can inspire others to do similar
good works to sustain our great American folk food.

John T Edge and Nick Pihakis

LOGISTICS

Humboldt is 16 miles northwest of Jackson, Tennessee, just off I-40 between
Memphis and Nashville.

Sam's is located at 500 West Main Street in Humboldt.

Lunch will be provided gratis on site each day at 11:30 by Clark and Juanita
Shaw of theOld
County Storein Jackson.

We'll eat barbecue fromHelen'sin nearby Brownsville on the night of
July 27.

After you sign up for a shift, SFA office manager Julie Pickett will email you
with contact information for the hotel rooms we've reserved in Jackson. You
will pay for your own hotel room.

If you volunteer, you should bring heavy work gloves, a hat, a mask, and a
six-pack of water bottles. If you can, please bring wheelbarrows, crowbars, and
large shovels.

If you try to volunteer and all spots are already taken, we'll put you on a
wait list for this weekend, or, as needs are further defined, check with you
about a future weekend.